Yuanchen stumbled into the bedroom and slid against the wall. His short strands of hair stuck to his forehead from the sweat coating his skin.
He looked at the unconscious boy and his sister.
Why did he help them?
Was it because he was feeling sympathy towards them? Maybe gratitude toward Lia for helping him and offering him a place to stay?
He was unsure, but he couldn't shake the feeling of needing to help.
Yuanchen composed himself — the feelings he was feeling, the questions that he had, it was unlike him. He was compassionate and helpful, but the person he was becoming was something that scared him to the core. His eyes deviated from Lia and he gazed at his hand.
Was it because of the entity in him?
He leaned further into the wall, almost as if he was trying to become one with the wall itself — a couple of minutes passed and Yuanchen got up. He took a breather before he walked to the bed and shook Lia awake.
Lia cracked her eyes open and looked up at Yuanchen. "Yuanchen? What happened?" she asked, her voice lacking energy, a testament to her current condition.
"Don't worry, we need to move. It is no longer safe here."
Lia's unfocused eyes darted around as she sat up, wincing at the pain flashing through her stomach. She placed a hand on her stomach and her eyes regained their clarity. In a split second, they moved toward Yuanchen, almost trembling. "Where's the relic?"
Relic? Yuanchen thought and retrieved the red sphere he had found on her. "This the relic? What is it?"
Lia's face settled and she leaned against the headrest. "It's a part of a device that was created by someone powerful."
Shengyuan, hearing this, was intrigued and forced Yuanchen's conscience to sleep while he assumed control. His eyes bled red and he scrutinized Lia. "Go on."
Lia closed her eyes, not bothering to look at Yuanchen to see if it was still him or what. "I don't know the specifics, but the device is strong enough to lay waste to a heavenly city when unleashed. That's all I know."
Shengyuan hummed as Lia finished talking. A device that can lay waste to an entire city — although he knew little about the cities and the world in general, his deep connection to the faint spiritual leylines of pure cultivation existing beneath the leylines that lay dominant above gave him a sort of understanding about the heavenly Dao of this world.
And the device Lia was talking about was his first starting point.
His eyes faded to blue as Yuanchen took over — the former having a scowl on his face from Shengyuan kicking his consciousness away when the device was brought up.
"We need to get going, the Red Clad will be on our trail."
Yuanchen's declaration made a cold sweat trail down Lia's back and her eyes immediately snapped open. The Red Clad were there? She looked around and for the first time since she woke up, felt a heavy draft slide into the room. Her eyes settled on the kitchen area, seeing the splinters of the rooftop, the tile used for the roofing and some of the window fragments.
"What happened?" she asked, her face ghastly pale.
"We had intruders and I killed them."
"You killed Red Clad members? The notorious Sect of assassins, and you killed one of them?"
"Not one, but three — that aside, we have to get moving because I have this weird feeling that they will return and this time we will surely die."
---
Thick mist clouded the tips of the mountain. On the very top of the tip lay a huge building made from hardwood modeled after houses of old, with curved ends on the roof, statues laid along the courtyard and corridors, and the building was surrounded by an aura of death, the dark ambience making it look much more sinister.
"They what!?" A manly voice disturbed the silence.
A man dressed in red robes knelt before the table with a silhouette possessing red eyes that stared down on the man.
"Yes master, the three assassins we sent after Ciaxin were killed. Their names disappeared from the Sect records," the man said, addressing the one he called master.
The master crushed the table underneath his fist as he slammed it on the surface. "Gather the 3rd core cultivators and send them after the wench. Now!"
The man bowed his head. "Yes my lord." His form got cloaked by the shadows and he disappeared from the room, leaving behind the fuming Sect leader whose eyes gleamed even more crimson under the cover of darkness in the room.
---
The guardian of the night—the moon—came out in full swing, lighting up the world, and beneath it was Yuanchen, Damon and Lia. Yuanchen carried the siblings on his arms and back, and they made their way through the Abyssal region of Sunderfall — they had left Lia's home under the cover of the night because he wanted to conceal their tracks from trackers and scouts.
Having walked three hours with the two, Yuanchen could feel the fatigue starting to settle.
Even with his body's conditioning from intensive training — the additional body weight of two people made him exhaust his strength far faster than he would when he was fighting.
He reached a pile of trash and placed down Damon and Lia, startling both of them awake.
"Sister?" Damon groaned as he rubbed his eyes from sleep — his brown eyes roamed around and he settled down a bit seeing the bright, warm eyes of his elder sister, the sense of danger that had arisen when he was first waking up now gone.
Lia cradled him in her arms, tears falling freely down her cheeks. "Damon..." She choked on a sob — because of her, her brother was in danger — because of her job, their lives were forever changed.
Yuanchen watched the siblings for a moment.
He craned his head to look at the moon and he blinked... once, twice, and three times. It then dawned on him — what he was seeing descending from the heavens weren't shadows but silhouettes bathed in shadows. His eyes landed on the siblings, oblivious to the imminent danger, and he knew he could not reach them before the silhouettes crashed on them.
His hand reached into his dirty, torn robes and he pulled out the sphere he created.
Clicking on the center — Yuanchen threw the sphere above them, simultaneously yelling get down to both Lia and Damon.
The Neuro-Qi flowing within the technological sphere replicated the amalgamation of the inception of a trash beast, gathering the trash around them — the trash formed a beast that was around ten meters tall. The beast had no sentience and it stood there acting as a shield, buying Yuanchen enough time to leap forward and drag Lia and Damon with him.
The beast he created stood no chance as it got sliced in two by the silhouette as it crashed on the ground with a sounding thud that shook the vicinity around them and created a crater which almost reached Yuanchen.
"Not bad, I must say your awareness is truly magnificent."
A voice came from the dust cloud. The voice carried an aura of coldness, sending shivers down their backs.
Yuanchen knew, whoever this was, was by no chance a weak opponent judging from the oozing killing intent emanating from them.
"Who are you?" he asked as he assumed the role of protector before Lia and Damon, sweat dripping down his forehead from the nervousness induced by the killing intent.
A chuckle came from the dust, and a draft swept through the land, pulling away the curtain of dust and revealing the person that had made it his home.
"My name is Yakeen, and I am a member of the Red Clad Sect, a second level core cultivator and one of the six masters," Yakeen introduced himself.
Yuanchen took note of the name and the appearance as Yakeen was unlike what he was familiar with.
Yakeen wore a long flowing burgundy cloak with an inner lining that had an ornate filigree pattern. Underneath, he wore a suit that consisted of a crisp white shirt and pants paired with a burgundy waistcoat that featured buttons and a decorative chain with the emblem of the Red Clad Sect. To wrap the mysterious outfit up, Yakeen wore a matching set of gloves and black shoes.
His attire was a contrast to the world they were in — sophisticated against the putrid tapestry.
In Yakeen's hand was a blade that had a white handle and small glowing cores embedded in the handle.
Yakeen's burgundy eyes glowed as the Neuro-Qi flowing through his implants coursed over his body. The circuits responsible for creating the Qi accelerated as he took a breath and he settled into a singular stance — his right leg slightly pushed forward, the left angled back, and both his hands on his sword. "No hard feelings but she must die."
Yuanchen felt the air thicken from the stance alone — he looked over his shoulder and saw the effect of Yakeen's presence over Damon as the boy had passed out yet again, foaming at the mouth from being unable to withstand the crushing pressure exerted.
He breathed in and closed his eyes, immediately doing that, splitting his focus as the tugging feeling from Shengyuan slipped into his area of awareness.
Yuanchen immediately snapped his eyes open and in a blink sent a palm forward, activating the Palming Lotus technique, projecting a palm-shaped shockwave at Yakeen.
Yakeen smirked. Too slow, he thought as he moved from sight, so fast his shadow remained where he was for a brief moment.
"Six Sword Script, first technique: Assassin's Touch." Yakeen appeared behind Yuanchen with his hand still on his sword and the attack he made showed itself.
Blood spilled from Yuanchen as a cut opened on his shoulder and the latter collapsed back, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
In one movement, Yakeen showed his prowess.